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92 CRITICAL NOTICES : takes the opportunity of discussing the materialistic conception of history as it is set forth in the writings of Engels and Marx. He admits that among savage and uncivilised peoples the life of the community was determined by the constant and overwhelming pressure of material conditions, in the form of economic needs. But he points out that although the earliest forms of social life are the historic product of economic evolution, yet the ultimate origin of economic evolution itself is psychical, and not material. As social organisation advances Dr. Stein holds that the material- istic conception of social development becomes less and less .accurate as a key to the interpretation of the facts. Mental conditions increase in power and importance; they tend to bal- ance and finally outweigh material conditions in determining the structure and functions of society. If we may at this point ven- ture on a criticism, it will be to say that the battle between the materialistic and the ideological interpretation of history is per- haps somewhat profitless. It seems to me that the correlation, the concomitance, or whatever word we like to use to express the connexion between man's physical and mental characteristics, is .so intimate and far-reaching that it is impossible to construct a theory of the origin and development of society which does not include them both. The evolution of society is the result of the combined operation of physical and mental needs, and it is a more philosophic method to recognise their indissoluble concomitance than to argue about the insoluble question of precedence. In the first four chapters or lectures Prof. Stein establishes the Kjompetence of philosophy to deal with the social question. The .social question of late has been regarded as lying entirely within the domain of political economy ; and it is not to be denied that in so far as the social question is economic in its character politi- cal economy must exercise a paramount influence in its discussion. But the solution of the social problem, if it is a problem which .admits of being solved at all, is a task beyond the powers of the economist. Centuries before political economy as an exact, or comparatively exact, science came into existence the social ques- .tion occupied the attention of philosophy. It was discussed from this standpoint by the Cynics, by Plato, and Aristotle, and in modern times by almost all the most important leaders of social thought. Men such as Morelly, Rousseau, St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Lassalle, Marx, and Engels were in the first place philosophers rather than economists. Even Adam Smith himself, the father of modern political economy, was a teacher of philo- sophy. But apart from these facts philosophy is entitled to say the supreme word on the social question, if we accept the defini- tion of philosophy which has been formulated in recent times by .such men as Comte and Wilhelm Wundt. According to these writers philosophy is the highest generalisation of all the sciences -combined as far as possible into a harmonious whole. The task of philosophy consists in looking at the social question in the light